My Diamond & I (part 2)

Thank you all so much for your comments, I feel blessed. I am sorry I haven't replied the comments, work has been crushing. This post has been set to publish automatically.

If you missed part 1, read it here.

My mother the prankster. She gets me every April fool's day. She once woke me up saying that my favorite aunt was downstairs. I ran to where she was supposed to be, only to find my mother behind me giving off one of her mischievous laughter. I joined in and admitted she got me again. I am still trying to get her, at least once but she always beat me to it. I wonder what she will do next week.

My mother taught me tolerance and how to love without reservation. She also made me realize that all we can ever really have is ourselves and the love of our family if we are lucky and not to rely too much on anyone except ourselves.

She told me to love my two siblings as they are all I have and anything can happen at anytime and then I would see people for what they truly were. She is never shy about her mortality. Suffice to say that my parents are still here and I have seen what people are capable of so I simply stick with my family.

My mother beautiful like the early morning dew on fresh green leaves. Every time I go out with her, People ask if she is my elder sister. I don’t look like her, my sister is gifted in that department. She taught me self confidence and hard work and not to let my looks go to my head as that could cause me untold trouble, but to combine same with sheer brilliance and then the world will be at my feet.

She tells me to be prudent so every time I buy a new shoe that I don’t really need I have to sneak it into the house.

She taught me how to count my cycle and know my ‘safe’ period. She knows the best to do for a female child is to teach her everything that needs to be taught and allow her make her own decisions as there is very little you can do when they are away from you. Life will always intrude.

You never know what could happen to them when they are away so just pray. I overheard her telling a woman. My mum has few friends. The ones I know are the ones she met not too long ago. I being me pack friends. I am a people person. I always find myself in a circle of them.

My mother the computer guru! When I was younger we would go to her office and watch her stare at those green screens that look like a tv but never speaks to you. After the real work she would allow us play Pacman, then she would play the Prince of Persia while we watched enraptured. Fun times. Each time we have a computer problem, we just call her and ask what to do. Every time I go to her office, people ask me if I am as good with the computer as she is, as if! That was some time ago though.

My mum put herself through University. She had me in her final year. She went to serve when I was 2 months old. She told me the best I can do for myself is to find my feet first before having kids because it’s not easy. One minute you are you, and then the next minute you have these little miniatures of you crawling around and demanding all your attention.

My mother who taught me the joys of reading a good book. I was a very naughty child. I could scream for hours without being provoked I just wanted attention. Once I start, my mum would fill the bath tub with water (I hated cold water) put me in, lock the door and switch off the lights. I was terrified of the dark. I was till I entered University. She would go to her room and start reading. After an hour she would come release me and tell me to stop being naughty.

I look at her books and think boring since they had no pictures in them but I wondered all the time what my mum saw in those books that she would forget me in the bathroom so I picked one up one day and read it for a week. I liked it so I kept reading. I read my first mills & boon at age 7.

She taught me to love music for it is food for the soul. She was the one who told me Left eye had died. She was on Fb before I joined. My sister flipped when my mum sent a friend request to her! I had a good laugh with that.

If there was a full moon, she would put my brother on her laps and we would sit around her while she tells us stories or she would teach us songs. What was funny was some of the songs were by Lionel Richie. Imagine! That was when I was about 5. Every time a see the moon I always remember.

I loved watching her apply make up. She would do her lips and my sis & I would pout for her to apply wet lips for us, she obliges. I remember one day my dad asked her why his 'girls' were spotting lip gloss she replied "it makes my dressing faster they won't get in the way once they have their own".

My mother the gentle tiger. My mum never beat any of us. She leaves the beating for my dad. She can't stand beating. Her strength in that department lies in the power of her words. I was a sully teenager too but she always finds ways to reach me.

When she was going for Hajj, I told her not to come back without the gold capped tooth. She said she doesn’t like it and she wouldn’t get one. I begged and begged because when I was young, I saw it on several people and I was fascinated by it. She succumbed and got one. Anytime we go out and she smiles widely, people go ‘so you are an Alhaja’. She turns and gives me the look that says ‘see what I go through every time because of you’ I just smile back at her.

If I wanted to go for a party, as long as I tell her and she sees the people I am going with and I am not dressed scandalously, I am free. She has saved my derriere too many times to count. She would encourage me to bring my boyfriend over rather than going to his house. That way she can limit the kind of ‘activity’ we can engage in. She needn’t have worried about all that as time has itself proven.

She still wakes up to make my sister and I sandwiches to take to work. I especially love the few minutes we spend chitchatting at that early hour when she enters our room to see if we were ready for work. She would come back from work and ask my brothers what they did during the day and what they ate. Then she is off to the kitchen to make dinner even though she just got home and the traffic was horrendous. I wonder where she gets the energy, once I get home I go up to my room to plan for the next day. Take a shower and sleep or go down for a few minutes.

I hope when I am a mother, I get to be like her.

If I had been asked to hand pick my mother, I wouldn’t have done as good a job as God has given me.

There is lots more I could have written but I will stop before I see my name on the epistle blogger list.

So as she turns 50 this week help me salute my mother my Diamond.